A fortuitous call and fortunate finish by Abby Wambach gave just about every fan at sun-drenched Sahlen’s Stadium what they wanted to see on Sunday: The soccer star from Pittsford scored, tying the game for Western New York in the 56th minute. But three days after Wambach became the world’s most prolific scorer at the international level, she and the Flash couldn’t finish the job. They tied Seattle, 1-1, so a season-high crowd of 6,347 fans went home feeling a little like the Flash – unsatisfied. In fact, WNY (5-2-4) felt fortunate to escape and that seemed odd because the Flash are in third place and haven’t lost since April and Seattle is in last and hasn’t won a single match. “We were lucky to get that point today, truthfully,” said Wambach, who scored on a penalty kick. When Seattle goalkeeper Hope Solo was told some observers thought the winless Reign (0-9-2) probably deserved better, she smiled. “Some people are saying that?” the United States national team star said. “I’m definitely saying we out-played them. (But) I might be a little bit biased.” The Reign might be a long shot to make the National Women’s Soccer League playoffs, but they certainly showed with Solo (eight saves) and midfielder Megan Rapinoe finally in the lineup, foes better not sleep on Seattle. “Two players can make a difference in this league,” Wambach said. The crowd was more than double the Flash’s average of 3,021. Wambach scoring four goals Thursday for the U.S. to break Mia Hamm’s world record of 158 may have created a buzz. She now has 160. “Rochester folks are my biggest fans. They’ve been with me since I was a teenager,” the 33-year-old and reigning FIFA World Player of the Year said. “Scoring that many goals for the national team is an honor and, for them, it makes Rochester stand a little bit taller.”

It was Rapinoe’s Seattle debut after finishing her club season in France, and it was Solo’s third match since returning from wrist surgery. The Reign nearly went ahead 19 minutes in, but Flash rookie goalie Adrianna Franch made a pair of diving saves on Teresa Noyola and Kennya Cordner. They went ahead in the 28th minute. This time, Franch was helpless because Keelin Winters’ 17-yard shot took a deflection off defender Estelle Johnson. “I had a touch on it, but not good enough,” Franch said. Wambach and midfielder Carli Lloyd had missed the past two WNY matches away with the U.S. squad. But the Flash, who improved their unbeaten mark to 5-0-3, won and tied without them and second-leading scorer, forward Samantha Kerr (Australian national team). They played Sunday without Adriana, who will miss the next few weeks with the Spanish national team. “We weren’t really clicking pretty much the entire game. We were lucky that we went up a man. That evened the game, in my opinion,” Wambach said. “I thought that they were really controlling the tempo in the first half.”

Coach Aaran Lines went with three forwards Wambach, rookie Vicki DiMartino and Kerr to start the second, but Seattle nearly made it 2-0 in the 47th minute. However, Cordner’s shot hit he left post and Franch smothered the carom. Wambach’s PK upped her league-leading total to seven goals. It was the result of being taken down by Kiersten Dallstream after DiMartino popped a ball in front. “A little bit of a soft red card, to be honest,” Rapinoe said. Going against her longtime U.S. teammate, Wambach hit a right-footed shot high and to her left, as Solo guessed incorrectly, diving right. “I hate taking PKs against players I know,” Solo said. “It’s more of a guessing game.” She said Wambach usually shoots to a goalie’s left – the direction Solo went. Wambach admitted she mis-hit the shot. She wanted to drill it down the middle because that’s something, she said, she never does in practice. “It’s like playing poker,” Solo said. “She beat me.”

If Winters finished a clean look from 15 yards in the 85th minute, Seattle would have beaten the Flash. But she hit her shot right at Franch. Flash midfielder Jodi-Ann Robinson also had a couple open looks, but didn’t do nearly enough to beat a keeper of Solo’s caliber. “I thought we created some opportunities but we just missed that final bit of focus and quality in the final third,” said Lines, whose team was playing for the third time in nine days. “I think that was due to our physical (state) at the moment.”

Congratulations to the Western New York Flash, who used a thrilling comeback to win the WPSL Elite championship Saturday at Sahlen’s Stadium on penalty kicks over the Chicago Red Stars. Toni Pressley’s 25-yard shot with just second left in extra time of regular rescued the Flash, tying the match at 1 and forcing overtime. Then, just like in last year’s WPS Final at the stadium, WNY walked away champion on PKs. You have to give a lot of credit to that young team and its coaching staff. Those players, just as they did when trailing for 70 minutes in Wednesday’s semifinals, never stopped working or believing that they could find a way. And somehow, they did. Good for them. To be sure, this could have been a different result if the fourth-seeded Red Stars didn’t lose two of their top attackers, forward Ella Masar (hamstring) and midfielder Lori Chalupny (ankle) oddly both in the 30th minute. But, the final tally on the year shows WNY beating Chicago twice in the regular season (3-0 and 2-1) and finding a way to walk away with the trophy on Saturday although the result goes into the books as a tie. Three championships in three straight years – not too shabby for Flash coach Aaran Lines and the entire organization. The man sure does have an eye for talent and her certainly did a lot more coaching and coaxing this season compared to last. In 2011, the Flash were a juggernaut full of veterans and stars. Lines told me he felt like more of a a manager – of playing time with women coming and going from national team duty – than a coach in 2011. This year required both, but certainly more on the coaching end. At least five pro rookies made significant contributions for WNY, including Pressley and fellow defender and Florida State alum Tori Huster and forwards Stephanie Ochs, Laura Heyboer and Katy Frierson. How long before some women’s national team makes a serious bid to hire Lines? There was some speculation last fall that his native, New Zealand, was interested but nothing came of it.

I’d love to see the Flash invite the Ottawa Fury, who beat the Pali Blues in PKs for the USL’s W-League title, down to Rochester for an exhibition match to pit the two champions of each top women’s league in America against each other.

SAHLEN GETS PROMOTED: Alex Sahlen, a starting defender who also has been club president of the Flash, is now the organization’s managing Partner, the club announced today. This position will be in addition to her duties as president. All further communication regarding club operations and potential partners will be directed to her.

ABBY KEPT HER COOL: I wasn’t able to watch the first half of Saturday’s 3-0 win over Colombia live, but I was following it on Twitter and was shocked – just like everyone else – when Lady Andrade threw that right cross at Abby Wambach’s eye. I’m just as stunned the U.S. Olympic Committee hasn’t used video replays of that and thrown Andrade out of the Olympics already. On Monday, FIFA did impose a two-game ban. But, credit to Abby for keeping her cool. She once again gave young players a good lesson: Get your revenge by scoring a goal, not with some retaliatory cheap shot. A lot of players would have done that immediately or sometime later in that match. But Wambach knows how dumb that could have been. Get caught doing that and it’s a red card. That would have gotten her tossed from Saturday’s match AND meant a suspension for Tuesday’s final group stage match against North Korea. “We like to call it ice. Stay ice cold,” Abby said after the match. “They’re trying to get me to retaliate and I’m proud of myself for not doing that.” Of course, the Americans have already qualified for the quarterfinals, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Abby plays only a half on Tuesday (12:15 start). Why risk an injury in what has turned into a meaningless match?

REALLY, HOPE? Why should we be surprised by anything Hope Solo says or does or tweets anymore, right? She has shown enough times before that she lacks a filter and instead of thinking things through before hitting “SEND,” and realizing there is a time and place for everything and that her actions can affect the bigger picture, Solo just fires away. The U.S. goalkeeper was absolutely wrong to call out NBC commentator Brandi Chastain for what I thought was fair analysis of the Americans’ defending, particularly Rachel Buehler, on Saturday.

“Its 2 bad we cant have commentators who better represents the team&knows more about the game @brandichastian,” Solo tweeted. “Lay off commentating about defending and gking [goal keeping] until you get more educated @brandichastain the game has changed from a decade ago.”

For the record, here is all Chastain said: “Rachel Buehler with the giveaway there. As a defender your responsibilities are defend, win the ball, and then keep possession, and that’s something Rachel Buehler needs to improve on during this tournament.”

As Chastain, a defender in her final few years on the U.S. squad, said Sunday in response that it’s her JOB to analyze and tell it like she sees it and she’s not going to change that. It’s not her job to be rah-rah all the time and a homer. If Solo had a problem with Chastain, trust me, all she had to do was make one phone call and she’d have Chastain’s ear to sort it out. Instead, she retreats to Twitter. Why handle it like an adult when you can blast someone in 140-character lashes? The U.S. women’s soccer family is truly that. The women do feel a kinship. Well, many do. Me-first Solo isn’t one of them. She took her tantrum, as she typically has, public and didn’t keep it in house. Coach Pia Sundhage and Wambach and veteran Christie Rampone had a meeting Sunday with Solo to discuss how to handle this situation and future ones. (Gee, haven’t we been down this road before with Solo?) Hopefully, they got it straightend out and maybe there even was a bit of a scolding of Solo. We’ll never know, unless Solo spills it. The coach and her team captains are mature enough to keep that stuff in-house. But Solo marches to her own beat. Always has. So you never know. She stirred the pot again a bit more Sunday afternoon with an exchange with her former Atlanta Beat coach, James Galanis, a good man who was defending Solo. Hope intimated in a tweet that Chastain is only jealous of the current U.S. team possibly eclipsing the glory of what Chastain, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and others achieved in the 1999 World Cup (the brief exchange was deleted on Twitter). Again, that’s just Solo showing her ignorance. Chastain, by the way, is a soccer icon. Two World Cup wins and two Olympic golds. She’s not threatened. She was just doing what she’s paid to do. Listen, I want this U.S. team to win gold and not just because Mary Abigail Wambach was born and raised in Rochester and is someone I’ve known since she was about 13. I think this team deserves it. But nothing they can do now or probably ever can match or surpass what happened in 1999. Never again will we see 90,000 fans in one stadium for a women’s soccer match. That’s no slight on this group, it’s just reality. What this probably was all about goes back to some comments Chastain made a few weeks ago about Solo’s positive drug test – the one the IOC cut her a big break on.

“It’s news that they don’t need,” Chastain told Larry Brown Sports after Solo tested positive for a diuretic she said was unknowingly in premenstrual medication. “As athletes, we have to be more careful. Whether you’ve been told one time something is OK, it’s always good to double- and triple- and quadruple-check. Something as innocuous as a cold medication to clear up the sniffles could derail not only you as an individual, but perhaps a whole team.”

So, I think, Solo was just waiting to pop off at Chastain and did it Saturday under the guise of being a good teammate, sticking up for Buehler. Gimme a break. A good teammate doesn’t create a distraction that could (even though I don’t think this will) distract or create division in the locker room. We all know Chastain and many others, some of Solo’s current teammates included, didn’t like the way Solo took her complaints public after former coach Greg Ryan benched her in favor of veteran Briana Scurry in the 2007 World Cup semifinals, a 4-0 loss to Brazil. Heck, they kicked Solo off the team. And, maybe there IS a rift between Solo and Chastain that existed even before the past month. But, see the big picture Hope. YOU are the star now. It’s your time. Don’t ruin it with a lack of maturity. Being outspoken can be OK, just not when you’re so out of line.

I hope you had a chance to read my story on Sunday about the prospects of a third women’s professional soccer league in America. Here’s the deal: This won’t happen unless the United States Soccer Federation gets involved and gets involved heavily. If Sunil Gulati & Co., are all about player development, as they say they are, then it’s the USSF’s duty to make sure there is a pro women’s league in 2013 and 2014 when there are no major international women’s tournaments and the U.S. national team traditionally has a light schedule in non-World Cup/Olympic years. And by leading the charge on this it means the USSF needs to do more than just call meetings and hold conference calls and say it’s going to run the league, hire officials, operate a website, etc. The USSF must get invested itself. That’s right, put ITS money where its mouth is. But a few comments I read from Gulati over at www.EqualizerSoccer.com keep gnawing at me.

”To think the Federation, a non-profit, governing body would have the kinds of resources to make those sort of investments is misplaced,” Gulati said before a sold-out (18,500 fans) U.S. match May 27 in Chester, Pa. Non-profit governing body? Are you telling me those tickets were free on May 27? Are you telling me the outrageous ticket prices the USSF charges don’t bring in a boatload of money for the Federation? Now, to be fair, the USSF does fund 11 youth national teams to aide player development and also does pay national team players. The Federation has money, but it would need to decide to invest more in the women’s game. It’d need to complement the owners who are going to put up their own – dollars from the private sector, as Gulati puts it – and while those owners would be the foundation of a new league, the Federation needs to be the pillars on which it rests. The Federation needs to find a way where it pays some elite player salaries (maybe add incentive on top of the salary it already pays to national teamers?) to help owners keep player payrolls manageable. Spread the national teamers throughout the league with an allocation process that has been used previously. And, the players need to hear this, too: Don’t be greedy. As I wrote in the story, it’s pretty simple to me: Either accept $10,000 or $20,000, or whatever the number is, to play your sport and build something that can grow and last and help players develop and gives little girls role models and one day may lead to bigger salaries or … get nothing because there won’t be a league for you here. You’ll have to live in Sweden or Iceland or wherever else that isn’t America and play in their leagues. If the lowest MLS salaries are still only in the ballpark of $30,000, it’s not unreasonable that some women’s pro players should make a third of that. That won’t be enough money, of course, so teams must find a way to supplement their income with part-time jobs in their communities. And if none of that sits well, use your degree and say so long to soccer.

Speaking of MLS, no one should hold their breath. From what I hear and read between the lines, MLS doesn’t want to be involved in the business of women’s soccer. Of course, I think it could help attract a different segment of fans if you had some MLS/women’s league doubleheaders, but MLS is about MLS. After 17 years, it has found a successful formula and I can’t see it jumping into the WoSo business right now. But run a stable and modestly successful women’s league for a few years and then maybe MLS would want to pair up. U.S. Soccer also will need to help attract some corporate sponsors for a women’s league, with promises that league deals, in some fashion, carry over to matches (read: television exposure/revenue) involving the men’s and women’s national teams. With the right business model and time on your side, for now, the USSF should be able to identify enough cities/owners who want to have a women’s team. Give it until the end of the Olympics, but then get things moving Sept. 1. Don’t wait until the end of the year. This task force Gulati wants to explore a women’s league can’t be scrambling around the holidays.

So put the word out now: Whether you’re in WPSL or the USL’s W-League or currently not in a league at all but want to be, let the Federation know. Get the ball rolling. Four teams in the West/Central part of the U.S./Canada and four teams in the Central/East. Eight is enough. Make each team take one cross-country trip to keep travel costs down. That’s it. Or, have an eight-team festival in one city over a few days and count those as league matches so there are no cross-country trips. I know of one city it’d draw well in (read: Rochester). If eight teams work, make it 10 in 2014. This can happen, but only if U.S. Soccer wants to make it happen and make it happen the right way and not by strong-arming private owners into accepting its terms without having a say.

Your biggest stars - Abby Wambach and Hope Solo – aren’t going to be around forever. They’re in the midst of passing the torch or will do it soon, so hopefully the USSF won’t miss the chance to play a major role in finally building and developing a stable and strong women’s pro league in America with a full schedule in 2013 and ’14 and scaled back one during Cup/Olympic years (as it always should be in those). We’re never going to have a men’s league in America with the best players in the world. We already have had it, and can again, on the women’s side. Do the right thing U.S. Soccer. Get this done. Lead the way in what will require cooperation from many sides to achieve success and if 2014 isn’t better than 2013, pull the plug one last time and this time, sadly, for good.

Jeff DiVeronica has covered professional soccer and the Rhinos for the Democrat and Chronicle since the team's inception in 1996. "Devo's Direct Kicks" takes aim mostly at Rochester soccer, but will also highlight the USL, MLS and U.S. national team play. Devo, his nickname since college at St. John Fisher, also hosts two weekly radio shows each Saturday on WHTK-AM/FM (1280/107.3 or www.whtk.com). "Kick This!" (11 a.m.) features soccer talk, while the Canandaigua National Bank High School Sports Show (noon) covers Section V sports. E-mail Jeff at jdiveron@DemocratandChronicle.com.
Or follow him on Twitter: @RocDevo